Usually, I don’t much care what people spend their money on (so long as they aren’t buying an election or putting a hit on someone).  I have encouraged people to be conscientious consumers:  try not to buy stuff made by children living in squalor, try to buy local, if you can afford it, try to make sure you aren’t giving your hard earned money to companies that oppose your beliefs.  These are things I try to do, and I admit, I could do better, but I try.  But I don’t climb on my soapbox if someone’s house is full of stuff made in China (maybe you cannot afford – or find – stuff that isn’t), or shop at the mall (maybe that boutique on Main Street doesn’t carry your size), or just cannot resist Chick-Fil-A (maybe you like chicken more than gay people.  Okay, that one makes you an asshole).  If you worked hard for your money (or if you were lucky enough to win the lottery), you have the right to choose to do what you will with it.  I may not make the same choices, and I may not like or understand your choices (I may even think your choices are down right stupid), but it’s not my money.

But I recently found out about something that people are buying – in droves – that enrages me.  There is a company selling luxury ice.  Luxury ice.  Luxury.  Ice.

How have the marketing geniuses (and I mean that with absolutely zero sarcasm, because to sell millions – yes, millions – of dollars in luxury ice, you have to be one hell of a silver tongued sonofabitch) behind this en devour convinced the rich and famous to spend their cold hard cash on luxury ice spheres or hand carved cubes (am I the only one that thinks a hand carved ice cube sounds pretentious?)?  Is it fortified with vitamins and minerals?  No.  Is it made from glacial waters, which some believe to be linked to longer life expectancy?  Nope.  It melts slower (so it won’t water down that $30,000 bottle of whiskey) and has zero-taste (a term they have actually trademarked), unlike that common, disgusting, unhealthy ice served in a typical restaurant, where the low people dine.  I wish I was kidding.  To quote their website:

Traditional machine-ice, generally made with local tap water, may contain upwards of 150 impurities and carcinogens, resulting in poor tasting and potentially unhealthy ice.  

Because no one has ever heard of a water filter?

So, why does this infuriate me so?  I can appreciate, if you are a connoisseur of  expensive alcohol (this would be one of the choices I just don’t understand), that you would like ice that doesn’t water it down so quickly or alter the taste.  But I really just can’t get past the $6.50 per cube price tag.  In a world where there are millions of people, entire countries, without clean drinking water, it’s an abhorrent show of extravagance.  Isn’t it enough to flaunt that we have so much clean water that we defecate in it?  Couldn’t the people literally pissing their money away, instead, spend it on something useful? Like something that will provide clean water to a person for up to 4 years?  Or anything else that would make a real difference in the world?

Apparently not.  Assholes.